The Authority of the Nation Supreme and Absolute; that of 
the States Subordinate and Conditional. 


SPEECH 

OP 

HON. T.' O. HOWE, 

OF WISCONSIN, 


In the Senate of the United States. January 10, 1866. 



WASHINGTON, D. C.: 

HENRY POLKINHORN & SON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 
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SPEECH. 


The Senate having under consideration the following resolution ; * 

“ Whereas the people of Virginia, of North Carolina, of South Carolina, of Georgia, of Florida, Ala¬ 
bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee have heretofore declared their independence 
of the Government of the United States, have usurped authority denied to every State by the supreme law 
of the land, have abjured duties imposed upon every State by the same law and have waged war 
against the United States, whereby the political functions formerly granted to those people have been sus¬ 
pended ; and whereas such functions cannot yet be restored to those people with safety to themselves or 
to the nation : and whereas military tribunals are not suited to the exercise of civil authority : Therefore, 

“ Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, That local govern¬ 
ments ought to be provisionally organized forthwith for the people in each of the districts named in the 
preamble hereto.-’ 

Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, when Paul stood there ‘Mn the midst of Mars hill,” a 
needy, perhaps a ragged, missionary, and told the indolent, idolatrous, and luxurious 
Athenian’s that God had made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face 
of the earth,” do you believe he was playing the demagogue or not ? When the Con¬ 
gress of 1776 assembled in Independence Hall, representing a constituency few in num¬ 
bers, poor in resourses, strong only in their convictions of right, and announced to the 
world that ” all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap¬ 
piness ; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men ; and when 
the members of that Congress pledged their ‘‘lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honor ” to maintain those assertions against the whole power of the British empire, 
do you really suppose they were talking for bunkum or not ? And when the Ameri¬ 
can people declared in their organic law that— 

“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, 
and all treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, Ishall be the 
supreme law of the land ; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the con¬ 
stitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding”— 

do you think they actually meant that, or did they mean that the constitution and 
laws of each State should be the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitu¬ 
tion or laws of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding ? 

I have put these questions, because however generally we may assent to these pro¬ 
positions in our speech, there are scarcely three theses in the whole field of discussion 
more flatly denied practically than these three. 

We do very generally admit Paul to have been a minister of the true religion, and 
yet if he had proclaimed in the Smithsonian Institute six years ago what he did in the 
Areopagus at Athens, he would have been driven out of the city. 

We do with our lips very generally assent to the doctrines of the Declaration of In¬ 
dependence, and yet when the Aifaerican auto-da-fe kindles its hottest fires, it is to roasit 
some reckless Radical who dares to assert the political equality of men. 

. We cannot well deny that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, hecause 
the Constitution says so, and we have sworn to support itbut practically we do seem 
to treat it much as if every law was supreme but that. 

I cannot now alford the time to defend the teachings of the Apostle, or the doctrines 
of the Declaration. But if it will not annoy the Senate, I would like to make a few 
remarks in vindication of the Constitution of the United States. 

In my judgment, Mr. President, it is time the American people adopted the Consti¬ 
tution. We have, indeed, been taking the tincture for nearly a century. I am sure it 
has done us great good. I believe now we should try the sublimate, and I am confi¬ 
dent it would cure the nation. Hitherto we have taken the Constitution in a solution 
of the spirit of States’ Rights. Let us now take it as it is sublimed and crystalized in 
the flames of the most gigantic war in history. 




4 


The war, as we know, was designed to demonstrate that the will of each State was 
supreme, and that the United States must defer to it. Before the Constitution was 
adopted, such was the case precisely. The several States were sovereign, and for that 
very reason the Union formed between them was worthless. The Congress of the 
Confederation could enact laws, but as their laws were addressed to the States, and the 
States were sovereign, they would obey or not, as they pleased. 

Said Mr. Sherman : 

‘•'['lie cuinplaints at present are not t.hat the views of Congress are unwise or unfaithful, but that 
their powers are-insufficient for the execatiuii of their views.” 

Said Mr. Randolph, of Virginia : 

“The true question is, wheilier we will adhere to the Federal plan or introduce the national plan 
The insufficiency of the lonner has been fully displayed 1^' the trial already made.” 

The national plan was adopted. Thirteen weak and thriftless sovereignties were 
welded into one g)eat and prosperous Republic. It was not the purpose of the Con- 
ventioji to de!?troy the State governments, but to change their character, to strip them 
of sovcreigirty and leave them no manner of authority to impede the execution of the 
national will. 

Hence it provides a national Legislature, to enact laws, not for the direction of States, 
but for the government of the people, whether within or without any of the States ; a 
national Ex.ecntive, sworn to see those laws executed if they are constitutional, whether 
a Sta,te dislike them or not, and a national Judiciary, to determine whether they are 
constitutional or not. 

The President, therefore, aptly says.in his late message thaU.‘‘the sovereignty of the 
State, is the language of the confederacy and not the Constitution.” 

But iri the Convention which framed the Constitution there was a party opposed to 
depriving the States of their sovereign authority. And since the adoption of the Con¬ 
stitution, there has been a party in the country which has stoutly maintained that the 
States have not been deprived of their sovereignty. They insist that unless each 
State can defy the authority of the Government the rights of the States are in imminent 
peril. They forget that it was the existence of this very power of defiance which im¬ 
perilled all the States under the Confederation. 

And, sir, there can he hut little danger that the several States will be despoiled of 
their rights by a Government constituted like that of the United States. The President 
rightly says that “the subjects that come unquestionably within its jurisdiction are 
so numerous that it must ever naturally refuse to be embarrassed by questions that 
lie beyond it.” 

Mr. Madison urged this same consideration in support of the national plan in the 
constitutional Convention. To my mind the States have another security against the 
encroachments of the national Government even more reliable than this. It lies in the 
fact that the people who compose the several States 7n^^^•ethe Government of the United 
States. It is not much to be apprehended that the creature will devour the Creator. 
But the State-rights party resemble a congregation of dervishes dancing before an 
idol their own hands having created and frantically imploring it not to destroy them. 

And the Government often seems almost as nervous as that party. Like the elephant 
with its owner under its belly, the Government often seems so conscious of its own 
weight as to be afraid to move for fear it will crush iis proprietor. Let the Govern¬ 
ment move. It will not destroy the States unless it betrays them. When true to its 
office it is but the voice of the States. Is there danger that the voice will slay the 
speaker ? 

Mr. Madison declared in the Constitutional Convention— 

“That in tiie fir^t place there wa.s less danger ol encroachment from the General Government than 
frqm the State governments; and, in the second place, that the mischiefs from encroachments would 
ba le.ss fatal if made by the former than if made by the latter.” 

Who that has lived during the last fifteen years will deny the correctness of that 
estimate ? 

Yet, in spite of the terrible admonitions we have received against the liability to State 
encroachments, and of the disastrous consequences resulting therefrom, there are those 
among us still who talk rapturously of the priceless value of the States to the nation, 
who persist in estimating its grandeur by the number of States subject to its sway, 
and who dwell upon the idea of their “ indestruutibility ” with something of that fond 
and reverent air with which we speak of tlie immortality of the soul. 

Sir it is not'the business of the JNational Government to sway States. That was 
the business of the old Confederation. It is the business of this Government to control 
people, and I estimate its strength, as I estimate the strength of all other Powers, by 
the extent of its territory, by the number, the wealth, the intelligence, and the loyalty 


/' 



6 




of its people. I dissent entirely and altogether from the idea that a citizen is worth 
nothing to the nation unless he is included in the government of a State. I aver that 
a citizen of this District, that a citizen of Washington Territory, is worth as much to 
the nation, and adds as much to its strength and its greatness as a citizen of New York 
or Massachusetts. 

If a citizen be loyal, ho adds to the strength of the nation, equally whether he he in 
a State or Territory. If' he be disloyal, lie diminishes the strength of the nation, 
whether he be in a State or Territory, bat not equally. The citizen of a State has 
more authority than the citizen of a Territory, and, therefore, if he be disloyal, he can 
do more injury in the fornno- than in the latter position. 

Has any one yet attempted to explain what principle that is which renders a State 
indestructible ? Does any one comprehend it ? For myself, I do not. A State is a 
manufacture as much as a wagon is. It is not, indeed, made in the same way nor at 
the same shops. But it is nevertheless made, and made by mortals. My friend from 
Nevada has just helped to make one. A State can be made only by those who are per¬ 
mitted by the nation to make one by those who are willing to make it. 

But once made, we are told ‘'a State can never die.” “Once a State, always a 
State,” they shout. And when, a few years since, it was hinted that the rebellious 
States had committed suicide, ijoliticians laughed the suggestion to scorn. 

Galileo, when condemned to renounce the heresy of the eartli’g motion, is said to 

“ Have made his abjuration vvitii all the Ibrmality commonly attending such proceedings. Clad ,in 
sackcloth and kneeling, he swore upon the (iu.spcls never again to teach the e.arth’s motion or the 
sun’s stability, Then rising from the ground, he exclaimed^ ‘it does move, after all.’ ” 

And so I, rising as well as I can under this load of derision, cannot refrain from 
assuiing the Senate that States can commit suicide and can die. History is but little 
more than a graveyard in which one reads the epitaphs npo;i buried States. 

Sir, it is poetical license and not political science which talks of the immortality of 
States. Have the people of Nevada made an organization which they cannot unmake? 
If they refuse hereafter to choose Governors and legislators and judges and municipal 
officers, will the State survive that mere neglect ? 

On the contrary, would it not he the imperative duty of Congress, in such an event, 
to resume the prerogatives yon have just granted to that people, and provide a gov¬ 
ernment to save that people from, anarchy ? Do you say the State is still there in con¬ 
templation of law, the national authority cannot enter upon its sacred domain, and that if 
the people choose anarchy they must have it ? So, then, because of your passionate 
desire to drag a State to heaven, you would let its people plunge in the other direction. 

There are those among us who seem really to believe that we have been fighting 
these terrible battles expressly to uphold the governments of the several States. I did 
not understand such to be the purpose of the war. If I bad so understood it I should 
have comprehended the significance of Karl Russell’s criticism. “ I understand,” sa;id 
he, “ how you may lead a horse to the brook, but I do not understand how you can 
make him drink.” As much as to say. “ I know the United States may overcome re¬ 
sistance to its Government, but I do not see how the rebels can be made to maintain 
State governments.” 

Mr. President, the Constitution does not command any portion of the American peo¬ 
ple to maintain the organization of a State. It permits such organizations only. 1 re¬ 
pudiate the whole theory that there is any political necessity requiring the people of 
any district to be a r-tate against their will. I stand upon the doctrine, and I want the 
American people to understand it, that it is a high political privilege to be an Ameri¬ 
can State. It is a privilege which California had to struggle hard to obtain ; and I do 
not believe this nation would have voted $3,000,000,000, and sacrificed two hundred 
thousand lives to force upon South Carolina and her confederates privileges which were 
so reluctantly yielded to California. For one I would not have consented to sacrifice a 
man or a dollar for such a purpose. I understood the purpose of the war to be not to 
maintain the governments of the several rebellious States, but' to defend tlie Govern¬ 
ment of the United States. As such I stood by its prosecution ; as such I stand by its 
results. 

A State i.s a public corporation. It has limited powers of government. Tlie exer¬ 
cise of those powers l)y some one is necessary to the widfare of its citizens, and there¬ 
fore to the welfare of the nation. If it utterly refuses to exert tliem it defeats the pur¬ 
poses of its being, and the common welfare requires the nation to resume them. It is 
cliarged -with duties also, and if it persistently disregard those, or willfully persist in 
the exercise of powers not intrusted to.it, it may thereby forfeit its right to heiug, and 
the common welfare and the common safety may require the natiou to resume its pre¬ 
rogatives.' 


But it is not every neglect of duty, nor every usurpation of power, which will Jus- 
‘ tify the resumption of the franchises of a State. The Constitution declares “ that no 
State shall make anything hut gold and silver coin a tender in payjnent of dt^bts.” 
But suppose the Legislature of Massachusetts should provide by law that bank notes 
should be a tender in payment of debts. Such an enactment would not justify the na¬ 
tion in denying to her a representation in Congress, or in depriving her of the func¬ 
tions really belonging to a State. Such a remedr is needless, and therefore unjustifia¬ 
ble. The courts could afford ample protection against such an act, and no detriment 
could arise from it. 

But the Constitution also declares that ‘‘‘no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, 
or confederation.” Suppose the State of Texas does negotiate an alliance with Maxi¬ 
milian, by which she engages to furnish a given number of troops, her whole military 
strength, indeed, to support him in his enterprise against the republic of Mexico f 
What is the remedy for that violation of the supreme law? You may say her people 
are not bound by the compact. But suppose they are consenting to it ? Suppose they 
demand it ? Suppose they choose their Governor and Legislature for tlic express pur¬ 
pose of making it ? Suppose her whole militia force is officered and trained with the 
view of supporting the alliance ? 

What is your remedy ? You say the compact is illegal ; so it is. You may say that 
in law it is null; so indeed it is, but in fact it is none the less mischievous. If your 
courts could get jurisdiction of the compact they would doubtless declare it null and 
void. But how is the court to get jurisdiction of a contract against which neither party 
complains, but to which both parties are resolved to adhere ? You may enact laws, 
perhaps, for punishing criminally State officers who shall thus offend against the su¬ 
preme law; but when you have punished the officers you have not terminated the 
compact. 

You may picket with oUr army the whole border of Texas to prevent the egress of 
troops or munitions of war ; bu can ymu prevent Unarmed citizens from crossing the 
boundary of a State ? And if you can, can your picket guard tell whether the trav¬ 
eler he halts on the line is from Texas or froin New York ? But supimse you could by 
sleepless vigilance and boundless expenditure prevent all the citizens of Texas from 
crossing into Mexico, that is not the mischief against Which you have most to guard. 
It may' not much harm the nation that citizens from Texas go into Mexico and shoot, 
or get shot; but it does harm the nation that the whole municipal authority of a State 
is lodged in tribunals pledged to the support of an alliance which the Constitution for¬ 
bids, and to the prosecution of a design which may involve the nation in a foreign 
war. It does harm the nation that a people and government so compromised by a com¬ 
pact which the supreme law condemns should still be allowed to appoint representa¬ 
tives to participate in the enactment of your laws, and to sit in ‘the secret councils of 
this Senate, to supervise treaties, perhaps, which have been negotiated with Mexico 
herself. Is the Government of the United States helpless against such perils ? 

I put another case. The Constitution contains this provision : 

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legis¬ 
latures, and all executive and judicid officers, both of the United States and of ihe several States, 
shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.” 

That is the supreme law, as every part of the Constitution is. 

The nation forbids that any part of the authority vested in the several States shall 
be wielded by any agent who is not bound by oath to sttpport the authority of the na¬ 
tion. The Constitution expressly exacts of the President that “he shall take care that 
the laws be faithfully executed.” And each incumbent thereof, before he enters upon 
the execution of his office, must solemnly swear that he will faithfully discharge that 
duty. He must then see that the Governor and every other officer in each State take 
the oath of allegiance to the national Government. How will he do it ? How shall 
this law be enforced ? The President has no methods or means for enforcing the laws 
but writs and armies. Marshals and major generals are his forces. But they are not 
forces in the use of which the President has an option. When the marshal can do the 
work there is no use for the major general. 

I mean to say, and I want it heard by all whom it may concern, that wherever 
the marshals of the United States can execute the waits of the United States, there is 
no work for an army: and an army cannot actively' be employed in the execution of 
municipal law. But when the marshal is resisted by force, force may be employed to 
overcome the resistance ; so much force as is needed for that purpose—the posse, if 
that will suffice ; the Army, if that be necessary; the whole military resources of the 
nation, and the whole enginery of war, if the exigency requires them. But what writ 
will you employ to make the Governor of Virginia take the oath to support the Consti- 


7 


tution of the United States, in case he is determined not to take it, and the people of 
Virginia are determined their officers shall not be bound by such oath f This question 
is not speculative. 

I remember, Mr. President, when you offered a resolution in the executive session of 
1861 to expel a member of this Senate because he declared upon this floor that he owed 
no allegiance to the Government of the United States. The resolution was opposed by 
a Senator from Virginia. In the course of his remarks he went on to explain how and 
why his allegiance was pledged to Virginia, and not to the United States. I quote from 
his remarks the following : 

“The oath of allegiance in Virginia, to be taken by all those who are admitted in any way to par¬ 
ticipation in the political power of the t^tate, is tliis; 

“‘I declare myself a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and solemnly swear that I will be 
faithful and true to the said Commonwealth, and will support the constitution thereof ao long aa I 
continue to he a citizen of the same.’ 

“ ‘ 1 will be faithful and true to the said Commonwealth’—that is allegiance. Am I to be told by tho 
Senator that we have a divided allegiance, that we can owe allegiance to two sovereigns ? Am I to be 
told by the Senator that when I c una here as a representative of a sovereign State 1 put off my alle¬ 
giance and put on a new garb, and not to a sovereign, but to a mere agency?”— Congrestional Globe, 
second session, Thirty-Sixth Congress, part two, tage i44J. 

When, then, a State binds her officers by the most solemn oaths to allegiance to her¬ 
self, and forbids their taking the oath prescribed by the United States, what is your 
remedy ? Clearly, neither writs nor armies can supply a remedy. But cannot this 
law be enforced ? 

Must we permit the municipal authority of Virginia to be administered by officers 
who persistently defy the Constitution ? Must we admit to the counsels of this Chamber 
Senators appointed by a Legislature'who refuse to take an oath to support the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States ? 

Sir, we have been diligently taught from our youth up that the Government of the 
United States is a Government of delegated powers ; that no power not delegated to it 
can be lightiully exerted by it. I admit the doctrine. I have adhered to it all my life, 
and I abide by it to-day. But I ask the country to comprehend at last the extent of 
the powers which are delegated.' 

Among the powers delegated to this Government are not only the power to levy taxes, 
to borrow money, to regulate commerce, to coin money, to establish post offices and post 
roads, to declare war, to make treaties and alliances, to raise armies and maintain 
navies, but there is also this other power ; 

“ To make all laws which shall be ueces ary and proper, for carrying into execution the foregoing 
powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution fa the Government of the United States or in 
any department or office thereof.” 

If, then, the supreme law commands the officers of a State to be bound by oath to 
support the Constitution of the United States, and if the President be authorized to 
enforce that law, here is authority for making any law necessary and proper for its en¬ 
forcement ? What conceivable law s so necessary and proper for that purpose, as a 
simple enactment, which declares that, since Virginia will not require her officers to 
take the oath prescribed to the officers of every State, Virginia shall not be a State. 
Since her people will not elect officers who will take the oath of allegiance, this Gov¬ 
ernment may appoint officers to administer her municipal affairs. Since she has no 
Legislature whose members are qualified as the Constitution prescribes, her Legislature 
shall not send members to this Senate. Since she abjures the obligations imposed 
upon her by the Constitution, she shall forfeit the privileges conferred upon her by the 
Constitution. 

Sir, I know of no remedy so complete as such a law would afford, and therefore I can 
conceive of no law so necessary and so proper. 

But this, we are told, is in effect a dissolution of the Union by act of Congress. Dis¬ 
solution of what Union ? Dissolution of the Union of the States under a compact ? 
We have had no such Union since 1787. Before that time we had just such a Union. 
But then we formed a “ more perfect Union.” A more perfect Union of what? Of 
States ? No, there could be no more perfect union of States than we had under the 
Confederation. 'Butin 1787 we formed a Union, not of States, under a compact, but 
of the people under a Government. 

From that Union there is no withdrawal, except when the citizen withdraws his al¬ 
legiance, and the citizen can only withdraw his allegiance by withdrawing his domicil, 
not merely beyond the limits of a State, but beyond the limits of the United States. 

Tlie Union which the Constitution ordained, and which I championj is no close cor¬ 
poration, monopolized by a few States, more or less. It'is, on the contrary, a broad 
and national association of the people, coextensive witli the boundaries of the Repub¬ 
lic, an 1 holding under its shelter the ru lest hamlet on your remote frontier no less 
than this magnifleeat marble pile in which I now speak. 


8 


But we are told that only States can appoint members of this Senate, and only the 
people of States can choose members of the other House, and that-only States can ap¬ 
point electors of President and Vice President. 

1 admit it. And it is argued that if there were no State governments there would 
soon be no Government of the United States. 

1 admit it. And hence we are admor.ished that if we admit the destructibility of the 
State governments we do, in effect, admit the destructibility of the national Govern¬ 
ment. Unquestionably. Who doubts that tbe people of the States can destroy this 
Government ? The people of one State cannot destroy it. That, 1 think. South Caro¬ 
lina will admit. The people of eleven States cannot do it. That, I hope, is settled. 
But that the people of all the States can do it, I do not think has ever been denied. 
They can destroy it, too, without fi' St destroying themselves. 

Sir, is it not evident that if every elector in Massachusetts should blow his brains out 
on a given day there would be no one left to choose her Governors and her Legislatures ? 
And yet who would think of arguing that it was unconstitutional to affirm that an elec¬ 
tor could commit auicide because it would argue the destructibility of a State ? 

But the flag 1 We are pointed to the flag of the Union ; we are impressively told 
that it bears thirty-six stars, and that it “ declares, in more than words of living light, 
there are thirty-six States still in the Union and my colleague asked the other day, 
with much emphasis and fervor, if that was a truth or a “ hypocritical, flaunting lie.’^ 
Uay, ‘Mr. President, the stars do not lie ; only my colleague, 1 think, lails to read them 
aright. If they asserted what my colleague seems to think they do, they would not 
tell the truth. But, in fact, they make no such assertion. 

Sir, it was a law of my father’s household that the name of every child born to him 
should be inscribed upon a certain page in the family Bible. It was not provided that 
when death removed one from the circle the name should be erased from the record. 
And so it happens that the Book, which is still extant, bears to-day the names of eight 
brothers and sisters. But I know, sir, I know full well, that only four of us are now 
living. 

So Congress enacted in April, 1818, that upon the national flag there should be 
“ twenty stars, white in a blue field,” and “ that on the admission of every new State 
into the Union, one star be added to the union of the flag.” 

It was not enacted that when any State should revolt against the authority of the 
nation, and impiousiy raise its hand against its OAvn life, a star should be dropped from 
the flag. And so it happens that our flag, wherever it floats to-day, flashes thirty-six 
stars in the light. But they gleam there not in evidence that thirty-six States still 
exist, but that thirty-.six States have been created. 

Sir, whatever may be thought of the right of Congress to strike South Carolina from 
the roll of States, I take it no one will seriously question the authority' of Congress to 
strike one or all the stars from the flag ; and what would then be the testimony of the 
flag? 

But the great argument against the doctrine of the destructibility of the States is 
this : It is urged that the .'States c .nnot be destroyed, because the law forbids it. Every 
suicidal act is illegal, and is therefore null and void. Sir, 1 believe the laws of Connect¬ 
icut forbid murder. But if .some near and dear friend of yu)urs should be waylaid, and 
have his throat cut from ear to ear, and you should apply lor letters of administration 
upon his estate, would you not '• e surprised, after you had marshaled in the probate 
court the prools of his death, lo be gravely told by the judge, “ 8ir. you are mistaken ; 
your friend cannot be dead; the law forbids murder. The cutting of your friend’s 
throat was clearly illegal, .and therefore null and void ?” If South Carolina had done 
nothing but adopt the ordimance of sece.ssion, no one would liave urged that she had 
thereby forfeited tin! prerogatives of a State. 

We would have been content to have the courts pass upon its validity, and they 
would have pronounced it invalid. But she did more. Having declared lier indepen¬ 
dence of the United States, she proceeded to have herofilcers take an oath which bound 
them to re'-ist the Constitution instioid of support it. And when the local government 
had thus disqualified itself for the exercise of any authority wlnatever, it proceeded to 
usurp every power which the Comstitutiou denies to a State, and to abjure every duty 
which the Lonstiiution imposes upon a State. *\iid when she had thus revolutionized 
her local government, she proceeded to crush out the Federal organs within her limits ; 
to take possession of her forts ; to convert her post offices and x.)ost roads to her own 
use; to shut up her custom-houses; the judge of the United States district court 
pulled down the natiouol flag from tlie court-house, and hoisted the Palmetto flag in 
its place; the judge of tlie circuit court was excluded from the State, and I think has 
not since seen the State; marshals resigned, so that there was no officer who could 






9 

serve the writ of the United States, and there was no Federal court in which the citi¬ 
zens of another State could collect a debt that was due, or recover a horse or a ship 
that was tortiously converted. 

And then she planted her batteries opposite one of your own forts, garrisoned by a 
handful of your own troops, and for forty-eight hours hurled its iron hail upon the 
walls until they were said to resemble a honey-comb. 

I do not doubt but all thisj was illegal, but I could not readily admit it was all a 
nullity. 

If it was a nullity, what authority had this Grovernment for planting the “swamp 
angel” off against Charleston and rainihg its iron messengers upon the city, or for 
sending Sherman flaring through the State as if he were himself the angel of retri¬ 
bution ? 

Sir, the awful truth is these acts were not nullities, but were great, unprovoked, 
unparalleled, atrocious crimes, by which every State official forfeited not only the fran¬ 
chise of his office but his life, and by which every citizen who participated in that guilt 
forfeited not only his right to vote, but his right to breathe. 

The President is pleased to say that by these acts “the States attempting to secede 
placed themselves in a condition where their vitality was impaired but not extin¬ 
guished, their functions suspended but not destroyed.” I am, myself, quite unable to 
find any clause of the Constdution which discriminates between those acts which 
impair the vitality of a State and those which extinguish it. Nor do I comprehend that 
principle of xihilosophy which admits that any form of life can be impaired and yet can¬ 
not be extinguished. With all deference, I should suppose that any form of vitality, 
in order to be sure against extinction, should be proof against deterioration. But 1 am 
not disposed to insist upon this criticism. 

Nor do I think it worth while for the great Union party to divide upon the question 
whether the Constitution requires us to say that the functions of a State in a given 
emergency are “suspended” or “destroyed.” Being classed with the radicals this 
year, I acknowledge a leaning to the more positive forms of expression. I have, there¬ 
fore, rather insisted upon the theory of suicide. But rather than disrupt our organiza¬ 
tion I think I could compromise upon that of syncope. But it is conceded that the 
functions of the rebel States were suspended, were gone. Perhaps the most succinct 
and apposite term to be found in the American lexicography would be to say they were 
“played out.” At all events they were suspended. Now, that is precisely what ailed 
Lazarus^ When he had lain four days in the grave and already stunk, it was only 
because his “functions were suspended.” [Laughter.] Nevertheless, “Jesus said 
unto them plainly Lazarus is clead^^' notwithstanding he knew he could raise him from 
the grave. And so I say these rebellious States are dead. But I know although they 
have lain in the grave four years, and smell worse than Lazarus did, [laughter,] yet 
the recreative power of the nation can make them live again. Indeed, the suspension 
of the functions is sure death to a man or a State. 

But since their functions were suspended the question remains, for how long were 
they suspended ? Were they suspended during the pleasure of the several States, or 
during the pleasure of the United States ? Certainly during the ifieasure of the United 
States. That is already decided, at least by the executive department of this Govern¬ 
ment. 

In April last, GeneralJohnston of the rebel army offered to surrender his whole army 
upon condition that the several districts might be allowed to resume the functions of 
States at once. But the Government then wisely and firmly said, “No; we do not 
propose to purchase the surrender of that army, nor sell the remission of those func¬ 
tions. That army we propose to take, because it belongs to the United States. Those 
functions we will restore when we see you know how to use them.” Is it then the 
pleasure of the United States that these suspended functions be now restored? 

But, first, who shall answer that question ? What department of the government is 
charged with the duty of declaring from time to time the pleasure of the United States ? 
No one pretends that the judicial depaitment has this power. But there are those who 
ar<^ue that it is for the President tq decide when these functions shall be restored, and 
^ that he has already decided it. I do not myself understand that the President has 
'decided that question. If he had done so, I think he would not have withheld so im¬ 
portant a. fact from Congress when he made his annual communication upon “ the state 
of the Union.” I have carefully read that well considered and able message. I find 
an unequivocal declaration that the functions of those btate which attempted to secede 
have been suspended, but I find no intimation that they have been restored. 

' And manifestly it is not within the purview of his official duty to restore them. It is 
the province of the Fres’dent to execute the national will, not to expounl it. He is- 

\ 


i 


10 


placed in eoinniand of the Army and Navy, to enable him to “take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed,” not that they be wisely made. With all that power in hie 
hands he cannot rightfully so much as transfer ar old musket from one citizen to an¬ 
other without the warrant of the United States, tested by a judge, declaring the right 
of the claimant to have it. The President cannot fix the price to Ibe paid for an acre 
of the public domain, nor the duty to be pa d upon the importation of a pound of tea. 
Is it supposable that the peoj^le who withheld from the Executive the right to legis¬ 
late upon such trilling concerns, would authorize him *to fix the terms upon which 
eight millions people, who had forfeited their lives by law, should be organized into 
eleven States of the Union ? I am not only confident that this is the last power which 
the people would confer upon the executive department, but I am p^'suaded it is the 
last power which the prresent Executive would consent to exert; and that not solely or 
mainly because of the unsuitableness of his office for ascertaining the national will 
upon the question, but chiefiy because of his personal relations to and his possible in¬ 
terest in the question to be determined. 

|)o Senators comprehend what consequences result necessarily from restoring the 
functions of tho^e States ? It will add fifty-eight members to the House of Representa¬ 
tives, more than one-fourth of its present number. It will add twenty-two members to 
this Senate, nearly one-half its present number. The Constitution designed the Legisla¬ 
ture to be independent of the Executive. But what independence has that Legislature 
into which the Executive may at his pleasure pour so many votes ? The Queen of Great 
Britain has no such power over the Parliament of the realm. She may constitutionally 
add that number of votes to the House of Lords, but it is beyond the stretch of her vast 
prerogatives to add a vote to the Commons. But this is not all. Restoring the func¬ 
tion of those States to the people of those lately rebellious districts adds eighty votes 
to the Electoral College which chooses the President and Vice-President of the United 
States. Suppose the present incunrbent of the White House was ambitious of a re- 
election—the supposition is in no wise derogatory to him—that is an ambition which 
becomes any distinguished citizen of the Republic, and no one better than himself. 
But suppose he were, as some aspirants for that exalted place have been, hot over- 
scrupulous as to the means by which he secured his election ; who is so blind as not 
to see the terrible advantage which would be placed in his hands by conceding him the 
power to add to the vote of the Electoral College more than one-third of its present 
numbers ? 

A few years since we heard much of a set of felons in San Francisco who were de¬ 
signated as ballot-box stuffers. But what ballot-box stuffing ever known in San Fran¬ 
cisco could parallel that which such a concession of power to a candidate for the Presi¬ 
dency would legitimate ? 

I make this comment because it is forced upon me by the attitude of those commu¬ 
nities which are seeking at the hands of the President a restoration of the functions of 
States. Their professions of obligation, their proffers of support, are too conspicuous 
to pass unnoticed. To the inducements which they hold out as the price of prompt 
restoration, I understand that a somewhat distinguished citizen of New York has lately 
added the proffer of the support of the Democratic party of the existing States. That 
tender, however, I am bound to say, does not, in my judgment, amount to an attempt 
at bribery. [Laughter.] And that for three reasons—first, because the gentleman 
making the proffer did not own what he tendered; second, because the thing he ten¬ 
dered had no value in the market; and third, because if it should come to have a value 
by the time the offer is to be redeemed, the legal presumption is the tender would be 
withdrawn. [Laughter.] 

And I make this comment the more freely because from nothing I have seen or 
heard have I been led to believe that the judgment of the President has been swayed a 
single hair’s breadth by the seductive arts which have been practiced before him. I 
am happy in the belief to-day that if Congress will but discharge its duty as firmly, as 
dispassionately, and as conscientiously as the President has addressed himself to the 
discharge of his, the country is safe. 

To the legislative department then is delegated the responsibility of determining 
when these suspended functions shall be restored. To Congress it ought to be dele¬ 
gated, because its members coming more directly from the people, and from many 
different localities, are supposed to be better informed as to what is the popular will 
than any individual can be. To Congress it ought to be delegated, because its members 
have no personal interest in the decision of the question. The people of those revolt¬ 
ing districts will have no more and no less infiuence upon the re-election of the mem¬ 
bers of these Houses whether the functions of States are restored to them or not. To 
Congress^tbis power is delegated by the express terms of the Constitution. “New 




f 

11 

States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union,” is the language of the third 
section of the fourth article of the Constitution. To Congress also the Supreme Court 
assigns this power hy necessary implication, if not by express adjudication, in the 
celebrated case of Luther vs. Borden, reported in the 7th Howard, Supreme Court Re¬ 
ports, page 1. There two distinct rival organizations claim^-d to be the government of 
Rhode Island. The question presented to the court was which of the two was the 
legitimate government. The court decided that the question was political and not judi¬ 
cial, and in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney I find the following conclusive words ; 

“ The fourth section of the fourth article of the Constimtion of the United States provides that the 
United States shall guaranty to every State in the Union a republican form of government, and shall 
protect each of them against invasion; and on the application of the Legislature, or of the Executive 
when the Legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence. 

“ Under this article of the Constitution it rests with Congress to decide what government is the es¬ 
tablished one in a State. For, as the United States guaranty to each State a republican government. 
Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State before it can determine 
whether it is republican or not. And when the Senators and Representatives of a State are admitted 
into the councils of the Union the authority of the govetnmeut under which they are appointed, as 
well as its repubiican character, is recogntzeckby the proper constitutional authority. And its deci¬ 
sion is binding upon every other- department of the Government, and could not Vje questioned in a 
judicial tribunal. It.is true that the eonte.st in this case did not last long enough to bring the matter 
to this issue; and as no Senators or Representatives were.elected under the authority of the govern¬ 
ment of which Mr. Dorr was the head. Congress was not called npon to decide the controversy. Yet 
the right to decide is placed there, and not in the courts.” 

If Congress, then, may rightfully determine which of two rival organizations is the 
legitimate government o'.' an acknowledged State, a fortiori must Congress decide when 
a particular organization is or is not the Government of a State. 

Since, then, the responsibility devolves upon Congress to decide whether the func¬ 
tions of States shall be now restored to tho.se rebellious and lately belligOrent commu¬ 
nities ; how shall we decide it ? 

For one, I sa^’- no! I say no for all the reasons that could influence my decision of 
such a question. 

And first, I say Congress ought not now to restore those suspended functions, be¬ 
cause Congress has not been asked to do so. 

The election of members to serve in this or the other House, issuing credentials to 
them, the presentation of such credentials here, is not an application to be restored to 
the status of States. Such proceedings characterize acknowledged States like New 
York and Ohio ; States which have never forfeited their prerogatives. Tlio fact of is¬ 
suing such credentials assumes that their functions had not been suspended. We know 
they have been. The President declares they have been. In April last he distinctly 
notified all rebeldom that they were suspended. Why do they not ask for restoration, 
present their constitutions, and show us what sort of institutions they propose to es¬ 
tablish in place of those they recently placed under the protection of the Confederacy ? 
Other communities, when they have sought to enter the circle of American States, have 
asked permission to do so. Wisconsin asked for it. Until she obtained it she did not 
assume the right to choose members to represent her in Congress. It is useless to say 
this right was once conferred upon Louisiana aud Mississippi. By rebellion they for¬ 
feited the right. In April they were notified the forfeiture would be enforced. Until 
the forfeiture is remitted they have no right to choose members of this Senate. Until 
they have the right to choose Senators we ought not to consider the question, whether 
they have chosen them, or whether those chosen have been regulrrly returned, or are 
properly qualified. 

The simple truth is, the representatives of those revolting States left these Halls five 
years ago without the permission of the nation, aud they now propose to come back 
without its permission. They defied the nation then to keep them in, tliey defy the 
nation now to keep them out. 

You remember in what mood they left here five years ago. One of them, in debate 
upon this lloor, on the vth of March, 1861, in reply to Mr. Douglas, spoke as follows: 

• “Mr. President, I have tried to explain several times, the position which I oeevipy. T am not offi¬ 
cially informed that the State which i represent here has aboiislied the otlice of United .States Senator. 
When 1 am so advised officially, 1 shall file at your de.sk that information ; and then if, after being .so 
informed, you shall continue, to call my name, 1 will answer, probably, if it suits my convenience; 
and if I am called on to vote, I shall probably give my reasons for voting; and, regarding this .as a 
very respectable public meeting, continue my connection with it in that way. .At present, though, 1 
am not advised that Texa.s has withdrawn from the Union, and am wailing tho.se instructions. I said 
the other night, it wa.s very late, and I hardly recollect it now, not having slept for some forty-eight 
hours, except when I could take a nap now and then—1 said, then, that in consequence of your having 
refused to recognize tlie secession of other States, and continue to call the names of their Senators 
whose official withdrawal had been tiled here, I supposed I .sbould contimte to attend the meetings of 
the Senate. If it suits my convenience 1 certainly shall; if not, not.” 

Mr. JOHNSON. What Senator was that ? Wigfall ? 

Mr. HOWE. I have read from some remarks made by Mr. Wigfall, of Texas. A few 
days later Mr. Mason, of Virginia, then a member of this Senate, spoke in opposition 


/ 


12 




to a resolution for tlie expulsion of a Senator from Texas who had declared he owed no 
allegiance to the Government of the United States, and he used this language: 

“ If Senators still persist in saying, as matter of constitutional law, that these States have not sepa- 
i-ated, that their act is null, they are holding language which—I say it with great respect, for I feel no 
other sentiment toward them—is more disrespectful to the Senate tenfold than that which the Senator 
from Connecticut says deserves the punishment of expulsion in the case of the Senator from Texas; 
and why ? Because, by their language, they declare that five million people and six or seven sov¬ 
ereign States are in a state of insubordination and insurrection, and they are taking no means to quell 
it. They declare herethat the acts of those States are null; and, although they have seized what they 
call the public property, altliough they have possessed tnemselves of the forts and of the public arms, 
yet they take nomeans whatever, and recommend and propose none, to recover it or to subdue them.” 

For one, I am unwilling to see those who then burst out of their seats taunting and 
jeering the majesty of the nation, now come vaulting back into the same seats defying 
and bullying the nation. If the nation has any autliority 1 would like to see it con¬ 
sulted and respected. 

But there is a graver objection still to immediate restoration. It is this: those com¬ 
munities are not now fit to take upon themselves the attributes of States. Our past 
history has demonstrated that absolute homogenity is not necessary to the success of 
republican institutions, if existing differences of opinion do not prevent the exercise of 
reasonable toleration. But the history of the world has demonstrated that when great 
malignant antagonisms 6xist between the members of a State, republicanism must fail 
of its mission in that State. The powers of a State, even where its political action is 
confined within the limits prescril^ed by the Constitution of the United States, are im¬ 
mense for good or evil. A State may determine who may and who shall not partici¬ 
pate in the Government ; who may or who may not vote at the elections; may ex¬ 
clude whomsoever it pleases from the office of legislator, of judge, of juror, of witness ; 
may make what expenditures it chooses, lay what taxes and contract what debts it 
chooses. It may regulate labor and control the acquisition and descent of property as 
it pleases. It may denounce what conduct it chooses as criminal, and impose what 
penalties it chooses as imnishment. 

Is it the deliberate judgment of the Senate that these communities are at the pre¬ 
sent time in that equitable and dispassionate temper of mind which makes them 
proper depositaries of such enormous powers ? 

To whom do you mean to assign those great powers which under the Constitution 
belong to a State ? Do you mean to give them to the whole body of the people in these 
districts ? That probably can be done with reasonable safety to them in a short time, 
but I do not believe it can safely be done yet. 

During the past four unhappy years a division has sprung up between different por¬ 
tions of those people unknown to their former history. A gulf yawns between them 
as broad as that which stretched between the rich man in hell and Lazarus in the 
bosom of Abraham. That chasm was made by the civil war from which we have just 
emerged. On one side of it stand all the disloyalty and nearly all the wealth and intel¬ 
ligence in those communities. On the other stand all the loyalty and nearly all the 
poverty and ignorance In them. 

On which side the greater number is to be found I do not know. Probably in some 
districts it would be found on one side, and in others upon the other side. It cannot 
be but that the spirit which animates both sides is most unfriendly, not to say 
malignant. 

Hitherto we have seen only the temper which inspires those upon the other side. 
That is as full of the extract of hell as a rational man would care to see. Those upon 
this side, upon the American side of the gulf, have as yet been allowed little opportu¬ 
nity of developing the sentiments which actuate them. It cannot well be doubted, 
though, that the load of hatred and wrong with which they have for years been 
averborne has engendered feelings of a corresponding nature in their breasts. * 

When you have once committed this fearful engine known as a State government to * 
a people, it is beyond the control of the nation. Thereafter that people must run it to 
suit themselves. So long as they exercise only the powers permitted by the supreme 
law, they may use them as they will. Whenever, then, you commit this power to 
the people of one of those districts, it will fall into the hands of one or the other of 
these antagonistic parties. I submit to you, sir, there is imminent danger that which¬ 
ever party gets possession of it in their present mood, will use it to the utter destruc¬ 
tion of the other. We hear*much talk about securing guarantees for the future. It 
was recently said by a distinguished member of the other House while pleading for 
immediate restoration— 

“I wonld exact at their hands all needed and just guarantees for their future loj-^alty to the Consti¬ 
tution a;: tiie L w.- tlie United States.” 


For myself, sir, I care less—infinitely less—about security for tbeir future good be¬ 
havior towards us, than I do for security that they will keep the peace toward each 
other. Hitherto the United States has been able to take care of itself. I trust she 
will prove as capable in the future. But a minority under the government of a State 
in the hands of a majority, moved by that active and relentless hate which we have 
too much reason to believe animates both these factions, and which we know inspires 
one of them, is helpless and hopeless. yntil, therefore, existing animosities have 
somewhat smoothed down, I would not dare to deliver these suspended functions irre¬ 
trievably to those people for fear of just such a collision. 

There are thrse among us, sir, I ani sorry to know, who propose to avoid such a col¬ 
lision by committing these suspended functions to the white populaion alone, with 
power to exclude from participation in them so many of their number as they please. 

Mr. President, I am not ready to accept that expedient this year. I do not expect to 
be next year. I cannot now foresee when I shall be prepared for it. But when I am 
born again, sir, and have a new gospel committed to me from on high Avhich does not 
proclaim “ peace on earth and good will to men,” but proclaims eternal war on earth, 
and hatred and all uncharitableness to men ; which teaches that fraud and rapine are 
the commanding interests of a republican State, and that Governments should- grace 
treason with laurel wreaths and heap chains upon fidelity ; when I hear that gospel 
from on high—not from below, whence I have heard it all my life—if I accept it, I may 
be ready to try this expedient, but not until then. 

This proposition is to clothe all on the rebel side of the dividing gulf with power and 
to deny it to nearly all upon this side. This is to make your enemies that controlling, 
irresponsible majority, and to make your friends tliat helpless and hopeless minority. 
This is to put the mill into the exclusive possession of pardoned traitors, and to throw 
all truth and loyalty into the hopper. That is the entertainment to w'hich we are in¬ 
vited by the immediate restoratiouists. For one “ I can’t go.” And I do not propose 
to send any “regrets.” 

My colleague recently characterized these communities not inaptly as a “boiling 
caldron of passion and excitement.” Into fBat caldron we are cordially invited to 
throw all the loyalty there is there, while treason is employed to tend the fires. I must 
be pardoned if I object to the arrangement. Why, sir, do yon remember who these 
are into whose- hands you are asked to consign these enormous powers ? They are 
traitors, and traitors not to a Government which oppressed them, but to a Government 
which gave them a monopoly of all the oppression thej-e was practiced under it. They 
are criminals snatched from the gallows by executive clemency. 

Mr. President, you may ransack the history of civilized nations and you cannot find 
among the rulers who have been deposed for their crimes one who has so unequivocally 
demonstrated his unfitness for rule as the very class w'e are now asked to recrown. 

I do not ask you to rest upon an assertion. I appeal to the record. If there is any 
practice wdiich civilization and Christianity condemns, itis slavery. But in detiance of 
that judgment these people persisted in holding three million human beings as the 
mere chattels of half a million. If there is any principle of government upon which 
the American people and liberal people everywhere are agreed, it is the principle that 
opinion and speech ought to be free. Bven in these communities every chapter in their 
codes, every article in their creeds, every measure in their policies, have been opened 
to free and licensed discussion, save only the rightfuliiess of slavery. Whoever 
raised his voice against that has been silenced or banished. In the earlier and better 
days of the Republic all were agreed that slavery ought not to go beyond the limits of 
the States in which it existed. But these people not only demanded free ingress for 
slavery to all the Territories, but in 1861 they w^aged flagrant w%ar upon the people of 
the United States because they elected a man for President who was opposed to legal¬ 
izing slavery in the Territories, and in the prosecution of that war have subjected 
the nation to an expenditure of three billions of treasure, and to a sacrifice of blood 
and of life which no man can contemplate without a shudder. 

Whj’-, sir, it is the recorded judgment of'the nation that these communities are unfit 
to wield the powers heretofore possessed by the States of this Union. Heretofore Amer¬ 
ican States have had the power to bold portions of their inhabitants in slavery. These 
communities have all done it. With two exceptions every other community has 
prohibited it. Against a wrong so gigantic the nation has been compelled to inter¬ 
vene, and has, in the face of an applauding world, deliberately stripped every com¬ 
munity within the United States of that power. That judgment was unquestionably 
■just; but who that believes in the universality of human justice doesnot hang his 
head at seeing thirteen great American communities arraigned at the bar of public 


14 

opinion, pronounced guilty of an intolerable abuse of power, and compelled by a national 
decree to renounce it ? 

Mr. President, will any one tell me that in spite of all these acts there are many good 
men in those communities, men as true to their convictions as are to be found any¬ 
where ? Who doubts it? Who doubts that Paul, when he threw Christians into 
prison, compelled them to blaspheme, gave his voice against them when condemned 
to death, and went snuffling on their track toward Damascus, was as true to his con¬ 
victions as ever he was ? But who believes he was then a suitable or a safe guardian 
for the disciples of Christ anity ? I am not clamoring for scaffolds or prisons, or penal¬ 
ties, or forfeitures for the authors of these crimes. Fling^them pardons if you choose. 

If repentance will not come in quest of pardon, send pardon in search of repentance. 
Give to the rebels life and civil rights, and political privileges ; give them offlees and 
honors if you must ; build altars to them, if you will, but, for God’s sake, do not sac¬ 
rifice men on those altars any longer. Will any one tell me that such recurrences to 
the past are calculated to postpone the era of good feeling for which the country yearns ? 

Mr. President, the era of good feeling waits for one of.two events. It will come 
when wrong surrenders to right, or when right surrenders to wrong. If it comes with 
the former event it will stay ; if it conies with the latter it will leave eaidy. Those 
who would have the era of good feeling stay when it comes should strive to hasten the 
surrender of the wrong, and should resist to the end the surrender of the rigdt. But 
we are exultingly told that “ slavery is abolished,” as if now there was no more danger 
to be apprehended from the abuse of power. Yes, Mr. President, by the ordinance of 
emancipation three million people have been delivered from the .^lave pens and taken from 
the auction blocks. They have been redeemed from the kingdom of chattelism, but 
they have not been placed in. the republic of man. Let us withhold our boasting for the 
present. Power can make men miserable otherwise than by making them merchan¬ 
dise. Who does not see that if the freedmen are placed under the po itical control of 
that white population, emancijiation has only transferred them from the individuals 
who formerly owned them to a close corporation composed of the same persons ? And 
what use is to be made of them then ? Sir, we are not blind or deaf, unless we choose to 
shut our eyes and stuff our ears with cotton ; and we. cannot fail to know, as well as if 
their purpose was emblazoned on all the southern heavens, that they mean, in spite of 
emancipation, to monopolize still the labor of the freedmen, to control its wages, and to 
appropriate all ot its proceeds riot demanded for their bare support. To that end you 
are distinctly informed that, with their consent the freedmen shall not come to the 
polls ; shall not enter the witness-box or the jury-box, or sue in the courts ; shall not hold 
lands, nor inherit or transmit property. Qh, but you say some of those communities 
have agreed that the freedmen may sue in the courts and swear upon the witness 
stand. Yes, but will you tell me how, with all these disabilities heaped upon them, 
they are to Ve able to employ an attorney to appear for them ? Or how, with all this 
prejudice arrayed against them, they are to find an attorney who dare appear for them ? 
Or how, with all this indignity piled upon them, they are to find a jury that is not in¬ 
structed not to credit what they say ? 

But how have even these beggarly concessions, not to justice but fowar/i justice, been 
secured? How has the consent of either of’those'^cominunities to the decree of eman¬ 
cipation been obtained? How is it that some of them agreed to annul their'ordinances 
ot secession while others have only repealed them ? How ha,ve some of these commu¬ 
nities been induced not to forego, but to postpone, the charge of the debt contracted 
ill aid of the rebellion upon the industry of those communities ? Sir, you and 1 know 
how it has be(‘n done. It has been done by the efforts of the President. We have 
seen liiTu, as it were, strip himself and go down into those several arenas, armed with 
the whip of political exclusion, as I have seen Driesbach go into a cage of lions, and, 
in the name ot national justice, struggle there for some recognition of it. For this 
labor, in the name of my constituents, I thank him. It was work in the right direc¬ 
tion. He has done all it was necessary for him to do. He has demonstrated that those 
people, if the nation will remit them their forfeited lives and estates, and readmit them 
to political rights, will do whatever the nation demands. In the name of God, then, 
let the nation demand justice—not the shadow but the body of it; not the semblance’ 
but the substance of it. ’ ^ 

Bui, sir, they mean to do more than* monopolize the labor of the freedmen ; they 
mean to convince the American people that emancipation was a blunder and a crime. 
Hence .it is that their organs clamor with t^les of conspiracies, of idleness, vagrancy, 
and of crime. Hence it is that Christmas was assigned as the day for a general upris- 
ing. Hence it is that on that day, the anniversary of tim day dn which was born, in 
Bethlehem of Judea, Jesus, the Saviour of man, it happened that soldiers lately’re- 

f 


15 


turned fron the rebel army, wearing the uniform of the Confederacy, within five miles 
of your Capitol, paraded the streets of Alexandria, doing their utmost to provoke a re¬ 
volt. Hence it is that throughout that region, still heavily garrisoned by the troops of * 
the nation, in defiance of any local public sentiment, if not in accord with it, and in 
defiance of the national power, murder sweats at its work“of blood. If you, who are 
responsible for the law of emancipation, ardently desire to be damned for it, you have 
only to place it in the hands of its most relentless enemies to administer and illustrate. 
Withdraw the national authority, surrender the protection of the emancipated to the 
men who formerly own^d them ; dictate to them what constitutions and what laws you 
please to-day, so that you give them full authority to repeal them to-morrow ; and you, 
know what will happen. 

Restored to the prerogatives of States and in full possession of their seats here, they 
will coolly tell you that having made one-constitution and one code for the Washington 
market they will proceed to make one for home consumption. ‘Having at your dicta¬ 
tion agreed to the act of emancipation, they will, after their own fashion, proceed t o 
show you what it is worth. Having at your bidding waived the payment.of the rebel 
debt, they will proceed to cancel the old bonds and issue new ones for the amount. 
And when, under their new code, the freedman is excluded from the jury box, the wit¬ 
ness stand, the courts, and from the whole remedial law, and from the schools ; when 
their labor js charged with an enormous debt contracted in the effort to perpetuate and 
intensify their servitude ; when the regenerated State shouts to them “ Work !” and 
yet denies them all chance to work except in the employ of their late owners, the great 
landholders ; when the freedman sees that his utmost efforts only secure him a subsis¬ 
tence which he always had, and that the strictest fidelity secures him no friends, which 
he once had ; when he finds that the tie which linked him to the family of his old mas¬ 
ter is severed, and that no new tie links him to the family of man, wdiat then ? 

Sir, I do not doubt that oppression, cunningly devised and persistently applied, can 
secure a revolt from these freedmen. And what then? Let Jamaica answer. A revolt 
has been effected there, and with what result ? Shaksp^^are thought to caricature the 
tireless genius of slaughter when he made the “ Mad-cap Prince of Wales” describe the 
“ Hotspur of the north” as “ he who kills me six or seven dozen Scots at a breakfast ; 
washes his hands, and says to his wife : ‘Fie upon this quiet life ! I want work.’ ‘0, 
my sweet Harry,’ says she, ‘ hotv many hast thou killed to-day?’ ‘Give my roan 
horse a drench,’ says he, and answers, ‘Some fourteen,’ an hour after— ‘A trijie^ a 

TRIFLE.’ ” 

Poetry gives you that for caricature. When you ask the newspapers, those chroni¬ 
clers of actual events, how many have been killed in Jamaica, they answer, weeks after 
the event, “ from two to four thousand !” As if it only concerns the world to know 
the number in round thousands and was not necessary to be Very particular as to the 
number of thousands. 

I asked a friend of mine, a sagacious calculator of political results, what would hap¬ 
pen if the freedmen were driven to a revolt. He answered, with the quiet assuraime 
of one who, looking upon a clouded sunset, says it will rain to-morrow, “They will be 
exterminated.” , 

Yes, Mr. President. But when the nation has returned from exterminating the 
emancipated, with what judgments will they visit the emancipators ? W’ho ot us, who 
are responsible for emancipation, will care to wait for his share of the execration that 
is sure to follow the act, when we have nothing to show for it but a maddened revolt 
and a relentless massacre ? 

But even if protection the most ample was already secured to these freedmen, I 
should still be unwilling to restore to those communities the functions of States, filiere 
is another cPss of people there who, in my judgment, deserve the attention of Con¬ 
gress. I refer to that class who have the luck, to be white but have had the singular 
taste during the last four years to be loyal. Do we forget lhat duiing those last terri¬ 
ble years different portions of each of those rebellious di.-'tricts hav(i been under the 
control of different governments, deadly hostile to each other ? A part ot what we call 
Louisiana has been under the control of the military authorities ot the United States. 
Those authorities have not only been protecting the territory within their possession 
against the incursions of rebel forces, but they have, in the absence ot any civil gov¬ 
ernment which the United States could recognize, been administering justice between 
man and man. 

It is not to be doubted that in the discharge of these civil functions, as in the exer¬ 
cise of military functions, your authorities have acted in the interest ot the United 
States. It is not to be doubted that they have discriminated in favor of the loyal and 
against the disloyal. Other portions of the same Louisiana have been under the con- 


16 


trol of rebel authority. We know very well that they have discriminated against the 
loyal and in favor of the disloyal. To what exteut these discriminations have gone on 
either side we are not informed. An officer, who has recently been filling a high com¬ 
mand in South Carolina, told me he knew of men whose whole estates had been con¬ 
fiscated by the rebel authorities for no other oftence than having been true to the flag 
of the nation. Now, it is deliberately proposed to surrender the whole local authority 
in each of those districts to those men in wliose favor the rebel authorities have dis¬ 
criminated and against whom our authorities have discriminated. Does any man sup¬ 
pose that any government can hereafter be elected by the peojfle of Louisiana, of South 
Carolina, or Virginia, which will uphold the judgments of your military commissions, 
heretofore rendered against rebels, or that will reverse tlie judgments rendered by rebel 
tribunals against Union men ? Does the United States really mean to sailer all its 
past action in those districts to be trampled under foot by its enemies, and all the wrong 
and oppression which has been visited upon its friends to go unredre.ssed ? 

If your troops had taken possession of a State of Mexico during the war, they would 
have done what they liave done in Louisiana, and for the same reason. And Mexico 
would have regarded your acts as Louisiana regards them—as the decrees of force and 
not of law. If the Mexican State should be ceded to tlie United States the (Tovernment 
of the United States would uphold its prior acts. If the State should be restored to 
Mexico tlie treaty of peace Avauld settle the question of the validity or invalidity of 
what you had done. But jmu have had no treaty with Louisiana, and you "can have 
none. Only in her new organic law can she abjure the claims or the pretences upon 
which she ought not to insi.st, or upon which you do not mean she shall insist. 

Every new State, when she offers herself to the acceptance of the nation, is required 
to renounce by her constitution whatever claims Congress deems she ought not to prefer, 
and especially is required to respect, alter her admission, whatever has been done by 
the authority of the nation before her admission. 

But, sir, if these people were entirely friendly to each other, there would still, in 
my judgment, be an insuperable objection to their immediate restoration to the prer og¬ 
atives of States. H'hat objection lies in the fact that a large and controlling portion of 
them are still really hostile to the United States. Gentlemen affect to discredit this 
fact. God knows 1 would be glad to discredit it; but I cannot. The evidence of it is 
conclusive and overwhelming. 

But you say they have laid down their arms. Yeq Mr. President, being physically 
unable any longer to hold them up, they have laid them down. But they seek to. re¬ 
enter the community of States ! Yes, Mr. President, having found they cannot have 
control of their own domestic and foreign affairs both, they would, doubtless, like do 
havm the sole control of their domestic afl'airs only ; and having found they cannot suc¬ 
cessfully Jight against the United States, they would, doubtless, like the privilege of 
send hero some hundred or more representatives to vote against it. But they will take 
the oath of all giance ! Yes, Mr. President ; bbt the oath they will take is no more 
binding than that they were under in 18G1, when they made flagraet war upon you. 

But some of them havm even renounced the right of secession ! Yes, Mr, President, as • 
Galileo renounced the theory of the earth’s motion. 

But everywhere you see unmistakable evidences that their hearts are unchanged. 

The uniform of the rebellion is .-till worn and its songs still sung. In a church in this 
city last Sabbath, 1 am told, three gentlemen were seated with the insignia of the re¬ 
bellion upon them. In Alexandria, on Christmas, men whom your law condemns to 
death wantonly assaulted men for no other reason than that your law proclaimed diem 
free. In a theater in North Carolina, a short time since, the orche-tra played the 
“ Bonnie Blue Flag,” and it was received with rapturous applause. 

It is suggested that those who parade these evidences of hostility are few in number, 
and do not represent the fueling of communities. I challenge the Senate to show me 
wdiat rebel community has ever rebuked such displays. Last week in a theater in Mo¬ 
bile, the orchestra, in playing a medley, carelessly or by design introduced a strain 
from “ Yankee Doodle.” It was hissed at once. Some officer in command there di¬ 
rected it to be played by the orchestra the next night. It was applauded by those 
wearing the Americau uu.iforrn, and hissed by other.s. The papers say that it seemed 
likely a general tumult was to ensue, and the ladies left the theater. I find here ex¬ 
tracts from three Mobile newspapers commenting upon that transaction, and I wish to 
read portions of these extracts. I read first from the Mobile Tribune of December 30 ; 

‘'The musi^ of the thing is execrable. We h:ive been averse to that ever since we first heard it. 

But it was, in some sort a national air, and that made it respectable. Is it not likely that it \va.shi.s.sed 
by some person who meant distaste to the musie and not toe sentiment which it conveys? At all 
events it was a bit of folly to hiss it under present circumstances.” 


17 


What are the “circumstances?” Why, we have not got our representatives into 
Congress yet. Under these circumstances “it was a bit of folly to hiss” an air to which 
the people of the United States are supposed to be somewhat attached. 

“ A niuiety of the audience was probably composed of those wlio admire it iu every respect. Their 
feelings and tastes ought to bo respected by a gotiU el audience.” 

The audience in Mobile was supposed to be “ genteel^” but not p. triotic or loyal. 

“ Besides, we are informed that ‘ Bixie’ and die ‘ Bonnie. Blue Flag,’ both of which w'ere considered 
semi-confederate national airs, are often performed by the orchesire without provoking hisses from 
that pan of the auditorium which is supposed to be averse to them. 

“ Cannot our people be as polite as their ‘ Yankee’ friends ?” 

It is a question of politeness 1 , ' * 

“ Wo sliall take the liberty al.so of informing tho.se who seem to forget it, that this State of Alabama 
is presumed to be within the Federal Union—that it has no power, even if it had tlie desii’e, to put it¬ 
self ill hostility with the central Government.” / 

The Tribune is satisfied on the question of power, but uncommitted on the question of 
desire. 

“ It lies yet in large measure, at the mercy of tho.se who overpowered it. Now, cannot people re¬ 
member this imposing fact ami restrain their prejudices, which an ouly excite prejudice, and thus 
lead to disturbances and give the enemies of the State an opportunity"to demand that more rigid 
restraints shall be put on us?” 

That means, “ keep still till we get in a position where they cannot put any more 
restraints upon ns ; hush for the present; wait till we get out of the woods before you 
* whistle or hiss the whistling.” 

“ We do not take these manifestations of displeasure as meaning anything of the slightest impor¬ 
tance, but the indulgence of them may lead to what will be of importance. 

“ We are not censuring any one”— 

Of course not— 

“but may conclude with a suggestion to the managers that they had better hereafter omit the per¬ 
formance of all airs winch are likely to provoke a repitition of the scene we are alluding to.” 

“You had better not play Yankee Doodle any more in that theater,” says the 
Tribune. ‘ 

The Mobile Times of the same date has an article headed “Music and Liberty,” in 
which, after reciting the circumstances, it says : 

“ Now, with due respect to all parties, the whole of this is wrong.” 

That is, playing the music and hissing the music, the ordering by the military officers 
that it be replayed, and hissing it again, is all wrong, says the Times. * 

“ First of all, no law, of either Slate or Congress, ever made ‘ Y’ankee Doodle’ a national tune.” 

They cannot find it in the statute. You have no business to complain that a tune 
is hissed unless the law declares it to be a national tune, and this is not recognized by 
the law yet ! 

“The very words which are adapted to the air exclude any idea of the kind.” 

The Times goes on to argue that it is really an old Neapolitan fishing song, &c. I will 
not detain the Senate with that argument. It is curious in itself, and I have no doubt 
would interest them. 

• 

“On the strength of this the tune may be hissed as a musical performance without any direct or 
indirect insult to our national feelings. 

“On the other side, it is true to state that national prejudice has to a great extent adopted this tune 
as an emblem, and that, right or wrong, it should be respected. 

“ The Times is too well known as a consistent and independent advocate of peace and conciliation 
to be suspected of partiality in giving its view.s.” 

I do not suspect it of any partiality, in giving its views, between those who hissed a 
national air and those who played it. Under present circumstances, unquestionably, 
the Times is neutral. When these circumstances have passed by, and you can no 
longer impose any restraints upon them, I think the neutrality of the Times will be 
ended, and I do not think there is the slightest doubt on which side of the controversy 
the Times will appear. 

“ It might be remarked here,” says t^le Times, “that, as the military authorities never objected to the 
performance of the ‘ Bonnie Blue Flag,’ ‘ Dixie,’ and other southern tunes, it wa-s iu bad taste on the 
part of the theater to introduce in their musical executions anything calculated to alter the present 
good feelings. 

That is pretty sagacious. The Times has got a remedy. The national authorities 
down there do not object to the orchestra’s playing the Bonnie Blue Flag, and the 
Times suggests and urges upon the managers of the theater to stick ■ to the Bonnie 
Blue Flag; then you will have none of this disturbance. Why introduce national 
airs ? Confine yourselves to one class of music, and let that be rebel music ! 


18 


The Mobile Register of the same date says : 

“ We lire free to admit that it ought not to have been hissed; but surely it was not politic, by playing 
It, to run the risk of making the theater an arena of political emeute.” 

It ought not to have been hissed since the orchestra stumbled on to it, but the man¬ 
gers of the theater ought to have taken care not to have their orchestra stumble on a 
national tune! 

*• The officers who took part in this portion of the play ‘ not in the bills,’ must determine for them¬ 
selves how far iliey have aided tiie President in his policy of reconciliation, and to what extent the 
sum total of ‘loyalty’ has been increased in the community by the evening’s performances.” 

So says the Register to the officers in command, “You must take care how you in¬ 
sist upon having these national airs played in our theaters ; you will balk the Presi¬ 
dent’s plan of reconstruction if you do not quit that.” [Laughter.] That I read you, 
Mr. President, frdm papers that are the advocates of the southern style of loyalty. 
They are defending them, and this is the way they defend them. 

Nowhere can you find but two sentiments ; one blustering with hostility to the 
national authority, regardless of consequences, and the other mildly suggesting, 
“Do not bluster yet; there is too much depending upon our good behavior ! ” 

There are those who flatter themselves that the temper of these communities is im¬ 
proving. My own observations lead me to tliQ conclusion it is constantly growing 
worse. And I think the fault is less theirs than ours. When the war closed the 
rebels very evidently and very naturally assumed that as they could not govern the 
United States they must obey^it. Hence they began at once their preparations either 
to obey the country or to leave it. At once a party sprang to the front prepared to 
champion the cause of the nation and to uphold its authority. The party was not 
strong in numbers or in influence. If the nation had stood by it, it would have grown 
strong, and would soon have become controlling. 

But, unfortunately, in a very few months it was proclaimed that the President was 
in alliance, not with the party that prosecuted the war, but with the party that op¬ 
posed it ; not with the party that elected him, but with the party that opposed his 
election. 

Soon public rumor pointed to Senators, Representatives, and presses who had hith¬ 
erto supj)orted the national cause, and declared them ready to go with the President 
wherever the President might choose to go. Then it was declared that we had fought 
this gigantic war, not to make the rebels obey the United States, but to make them 
govern their own States ; that the}’' would be invested with those governments as soon 
as they would accept them, and all could see that as soon as the rebels were installed 
in those governments all who dared to befriend the United Stares would be subjected 
to every outrage that fiolitical rancor, clothed with the prerogatives of a State, could 
inflict. Since then the United States has had no friends in those districts. There have 
been but two parties there ; one endeavoring to awe the Government with professions 
of defiance, and the other endeavoring to cheat it with professions of friendship. 

No Government can expect friends, and no Government deserves them, which does 
not demonstrate its ability, or, at least, its willingness, to protect them. 

But we are told that it is not strange that these people should not cherish any very 
lively regard for the United States at present. Perhaps it is not. But it seems to me 
surpassing strange that the United States should insist upon thrusting vast political 
powers into the hands of millions who maintain enrelenting hostility to the national 
cause. 

I therefore conclude that upon every consideration, both of national honor, of na¬ 
tional safety, and of local intesest. Congress ought not yet to restore the suspended 
functions of those rebelling States. 

But it is said, such is the policy of the President, and my colleague exhorts us in 
vehement terms to “stand by the President and to uphold his hand.” Why, sir, I 
desire to say to my colleague, and to the President, if he will listen, that we will stand 
by him if he will stand by the United States. I desire to remind my colleague, and 
the President, if he will listen, that we have stood by him because he did stand by the 
United States. 

Mr. President, when at Baltimore, in 1864, the representatives of the Union party 
selected Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, to be their candidate for Vice President of the 
United States, there was no tie in common between them and him except that both 
stood committed to the defence of the supremacy of the United States. We knew, then 
that if elected there would be but one life between him and the command of the’Army 
and Navy of the Union. We knew that if by any Providence he should succeed to 
that command he could surrender both to the enemy. But we did not believe he would 
do it. No man had given more signal evidences of his devotion to the national cause 


19 


than he. No man believed more implicitly in the sincerity of that devotion than my¬ 
self. No man, perhaps, dwelt upon the conclusiveness of those evidences with more 
grateful enthusiasm than I did in my addresses to my constituents during the-canvass of 
that year. I believe still he was loyal then. I believe still he is loyal now. 

Sir, who says the President demands the immediate restoration of those communities 
to the status of States ? Certainly he has not told us so. It is certain, also, the Con¬ 
stitution gives 1dm no authority to make such a demand. It does give him express au¬ 
thority to “recommend ” to the consideration of Congress such measures “as he shall 
judge necessary and expedient.” But he has not recommended even any such mea¬ 
sure as I have been combatting. On the contrary, it seems to me he has studiously 
forborne to make any such recommendation. 

“ And if an angel should have come to me, 

. ’ And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, 

I would not have believed no tongue but Hubert’s.” 

And let who will come and tell me the President would surrender one of the choicest 
prerogatives of the national supremacy, and would surrender the protection of its 
freedmen, its heroic soldiers, and its faithful friends to their direst enemies, I will be¬ 
lieve no tongue but the President’s. Whatever may be thought of what he has already 
done it should be remembered he has not acted in defiance of congressional direction, 
but in want of it—a want which I have often urged the Senate to attempt to supply. 

Besides, sir, if I knew that the President differed from the views I have here ad¬ 
vanced, I cannot forget it was Wisconsin that placed me here and not the President. 

I believe that to-d:iy I have given utterance to the convictions which animate the 
loyal people of Wisconsin. I know I have given utterance to my own convictions, de¬ 
liberately formed and long cherished. And I trust the President has too just an ap¬ 
preciation of the office of representative to expect or wish any one to betray the dictates 
of his own conscience or his own constituents to echo the views of the Executive. 

Sir, let the day be far-distant when the Senate shall be seriously importuned to sur¬ 
render its own convictions of duty to executive dictation. And if the day shall ever 
come when the Senate shall yield to such importunity, then the American system will 
be destroyed, and the fragments only will remain to be scrambled for. 

But because these people are not yet prepared to resume their suspended functions, 
does it follow that they must be left to the control of military authority ? By no 
manner of means. The objections to that are second only to those I have urged against 
immediate restoration. I cannot detain the Senate by a recapitulation of them. 

Upon this point I content myself with citing the argument presented by the late 
message of the President: 

“Now, military governments, established for an indefinite period, would have offered no security 
for the early suppression of discontent; would have divided the people into the vanquishers and the 
vanquished; and would have envenomed hatred, rather than have restored affection. Once estab¬ 
lished, no precise limit to their continuance was conceivable. They would have occasioned an in'cal- 
cuiable and exhausting expense. Peaceful emigration to and from that portion of the country is one 
of the best means that can be thought of for the restoration of harmony; and that emigration would 
have been prevented ;~for what emigrant from abroad, what industrious citizen at home, would place 
himself willingly under military rule? The chief persons who would have followed in the train of 
the Army would have been dependents on the General Government, or men who expected profit from 
the miseries of their erring fellow-citizens. The power of patronage and rule which would have been 
exercised, under the President, over avast and populous and naturally wealthy region, are greater 
than, unless under extreme necessity, I should be willing to intrust to any one man; they are such 
as, for myself, I could never, unless on occasions of great emergency, consent to exercise. The wilful 
use of such powers if continued through a period of years, would have endangered the purity of the ’ 
general administration and the liberties of the States which remained loyal.” 

To my mind this argument is unanswerable. But one expedient then is left. That 
is to organize provisional governments for each of those districts. Give them Gov¬ 
ernors and judges appointed by the national authority. Give them Legislatures chosen 
by the people of the districts, reserving to Congress a veto up'^n any laws designed to. 
oppress any portion of the people. Allow them also to be represented in one or both 
Houses of Congress by Delegates chosen by themselves. This is precisely what has 
been done in every case where any considerable number of our citizens have betnfoiiifd 
without the limits of organized States. It was done for those people who poured out 
of the old States to settle the Territories northwest of the Ohio. It was done for those 
people who inhabited the territory we purchased from France, and for those inhabiting 
the territory we conquered from Mexico. The reason for doing it was precisely the 
same in every case. There were people to be governed, and they were not prepared 
for State governments. The reason is* the same in this case. There are people who. 
must not be left to anarchy, and they are not fitted to be clothed with the prerogatives 
of States. 




20 

Bat gentlemen say tliis is radical, and the times demand conservative measures. 
Why, sir, if gentlemen will say what it is they wish to conserve, I can better say 
whether this will answer their purpose. 

If they wish to conserve the supremacy of the nation, this will enable them to do it, 
for it retains authority in the hands of the nation ^ntil tlie late .belligerents are ju'e- 
pared to wield it in harmony with the national interests. If they wish to conserve the 
equality of men, this enables ihem to do it, for it will enable the nation to forbid any 
class of men from being placed beyond the j)rotection of law. If they wish to conserve 
the integrity of the States, this will enable them to do it, for it respects the rights of 
every State which has not forfeited its own functions. If they wish to protect the na¬ 
tional debt, this will enable them to do it, for it guards that debt, for a time at least, 
against the machinations of those who are most hostile to it. If they wish to conserve 
the jieople of the revolted Sta es against the payment of the rebel debt, this enables 
them to do it. If they wish to conserve the peace in those insurrectionary districts, 
this enables them to do it, ami to employ for that purpose the whole authority and the 
whole power of the nation. If they wish to conserve the cause of emancipation, it 
will enable them to do it, for it will enable them to make emancipation a blessing to 
both the master and the freedman. If they wish to conserve what loyalty there is in 
those districts, and to hasten its development, this will enable them to do it, for it will 
demonstrate to the world that it is no longer dangerous to be loyal. If they wish to 
conserve the rights of those Union men whose fidelity has been visited with penalties 
by rebel tribunals, or to conserve those rights which now rest upon the decrees of our 
own military tribunals in the revolted districts, this will enable them to do it. 

Mr. President, I cannot foresee what will be the judgment of Congress upon the 
great problems now confronting it. If they can find a shorter and a surer path to 
safety and peace than this, I will gladly accomj)any them in it. For myself, I have 
looked for such a path for four years, and I have been wholly unable to see any other 
than this. I earnestly invoke the Senate to try it. 

Mr. President, I know of nothing in the life of Christ more touching, or, if you think 
of it, more tenibie, than that scene narrated by His first biographer when, standing in 
the tempK and contemplating the great destruction that was soon to overtake the city, 
he exclaimed: 

“ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou tliat killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unt^ 
thee, how often would I liave gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not! 

Bciliold, yeur,house is left unto you desolate.” 

And when I remember how the Almighty has held us by the hand during the late 
deadly struggle, how He has led ns more visibly than He ever did any other people 
since He guided the Israelites out of Egypt; how we in these very days have seen Him 
again part the Red sea that this nation might walk through dry ; and when I contem¬ 
plate the possibility that we may refuse after all to cross the river of prejudice that 
lies before us, that we may not be able even now to cast off the idea that “ they are all 
giants ” on tlie other side, that we may not after all dare to be sensible, that we may 
leave those who have been sent to us to be stoned by their enemies, I sometimes think 
I hear the same Jesns bending from the great white tlirone, where He sitteth evermpre 
by the side of the Father, and exclaiming with the same infinite tenderness, 0 America, 
America, how often would I have gathered tliy children together, even as a hen gath¬ 
ereth her cliickens under her wings, and ye would not; henceforth your house is left 
unto you desolate. 

Mr. President, I move that this resolution, if there is no occasion for its further con¬ 
sideration at present, he referred to the joint committee on reconstruction. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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